Bugs generate power while cleaning nuclear waste

Washington: Researchers have figured out how a class of bugs can deliver double benefit -- generate power while cleaning up nuclear waste and other toxic metals.

"Geobacter bacteria are tiny micro-organisms that can play a major role in cleaning up (nuclear fuel) polluted sites around the world," said Michigan State University microbiologist Gemma Reguera, who led the study.

Their effectiveness was proven during a cleanup in a uranium mill tailings site in Colorado. Researchers injected acetate into contaminated groundwater, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

Since this is geobacters` preferred food, it stimulated the growth of the bug`s community already in the soil, which in turn, worked to remove the uranium, Reguera said, according to a Michigan statement.

Nanowires, hair-like appendages found on the outside of geobacters, are the managers of electrical activity during such a cleanup.